Presidential Campaign

The Vistancia 5th Graders have been assigned a three part Project. The first phase is for each student to create a Campaign Poster with a slogan as if she is running for President of the United States. See Nicole's Poster. The second phase is writing a speach and presenting it to the class in 3-5 minutes. The last phase is creating a brochure or handout with a biography.

Thunder

Here are two video clips that Nicole created of this season's volleyball team, Thunder.

End of Season Party

End of Nicole's volleyball season. The team had a party, pizza, snacks and tons of fun! The kids had a blast. And a blast of water! Watch the video to see what I mean.

Nicole's 10th Tooth

I think it's been about 2 years since Nicole has lost a tooth, but we are happy to say she lost her 10th one! Her bottom tooth has been loose for some time now and was just being stubborn. We were at church service Sunday and it started bleeding really bad while we were sitting there and we had to run to the rest room. It didn't come out then, and we got the bleeding under control. She sat the whole time in church with a wad of tissue on her mouth.

Today, she had a 6 month dental appointment for her teeth cleaning. I asked the Doctor if it was loose enough for her to pull it. She said she would numb it up with gel and Nicole can pull it out herself. I'm not sure if Nicole quite understood what she meant because she never had her cheek and mouth numb before and was quite taken by that. The Dr. said since she(Dr.) is pulling it out, Nicole will have to split whatever the tooth fairy gives her. So if it's $1.00, the Dr. gets 50 cents. She did it so fast, Nicole didn't feel a thing.

Holiday Events at Blackstone

Holiday Events at Blackstone

This weekend the affluent Vistancia community nearby, called "Blackstone", hosted a variety of Holiday Events. Yesterday, we saw a cooking demonstration by Maggie who made an awesome Pumpkin Bread Pudding. I have one in the oven right now, so we'll see how mine comes out. I usually don't care for bread pudding, but this was extremely easy to make and tasted excellent. We toured some of the models as you can see some cool pools! We went to another Model that hosted how to decorate your house and wrap elegant xmas gifts. Today, yet another model had free pictures with Santa. So we got all dressed up and had our picture taken. I don't have those photos yet. However, Nicole was adamant that our christmas photo included Max, so we can home and took some more pictures with him. Those are the ones that are posted. It feels odd that Christmas is around the corner when you see the blue skies in the background of these pictures.....

Xmas Lights and Bingo

Tonight, our Vistancia community lit all the xmas trees (errr, palm trees) with xmas lights and hosted a family bingo night. We didn't win anything, but then it didn't cost us anything for 2 hours of fun with friends. They did have some awesome prizes though. Sorry for the photos of the xmas lights being blurry. I'm still learning how to use the digital camera.

Red Hatter Rose

Is it Halloween AGAIN? Nope, this is just my (older) sister, Rose, acting her age. Rose is a member of the Red Hatters in Bartlett, IL. Red Hatters is a group of women that get together socially. You have to wear a pink hat and lavender outfit until you reach the age of 50. After 50, there is a big celebration and you get to decorate and wear a red hat and purple clothes. Can you tell by the hat, that my sister LOVES her name? Rose lives in Illinois with her husband, Mike, of 32 years and two intelligent and charming sons, Michael and Anthony. I have another older sister (yes I'm the baby), Fran. Fran and her husband Bob live with their multiple dogs (I lost count :)) in my home state of Michigan. Fran and Bob are a tremendous help to my Mom who is very independent and lives on her own since my Dad passed away 8 years ago, this December. I feel very fortunate to be able to live out of state, knowing that my Mom is well taken care of.

Discovery Trail & Waterfall

Nicole and I took Dan on the Discovery Trail (3.5 miles one way) for the first time to see the Waterfall. Stopped at Safeway and Walgreens on the way home.

Views while visting Garage Sales

Garage Sale

Back in Michigan, once a year, our block would have a garage sale. You could find some interesting things there. At that time, Nicole was really into the stuffed animals(she still is but now that is not the only thing she is interested in). Last year we had one at our house but not too many people showed up. This year we didn't have one but went to some. But it's not just a "block" sale. Anyone in the Vistancia community is allowed to participate, so it's about 5 square miles.

We had Nicole's friend, Izzy, with us. The first house Nicole asked me if she could buy this giant giraffe stuffed animal. The answer was no. At that first house, Izzy bought a little box, inside it were a mini stapler with a box of staples, paper clips, and tacks. Nicole got nothing there. The next house Nicole bought a music stand for $5 for her clarinet. At another house Izzy bought a Spongebob Squarepants computer game. At one house Izzy bought a finger painting kit. That left Nicole with her music stand and nothing else. As we were driving around, we saw that a friend of mine that was having a garage sale. Nicole saw two hassocks and got those. No clue where to put them. Like we don't have enough "stuff" in our house already! I really didn't buy anything for myself. But I did buy a bar that you put on your bathtub to help you get up and out. I bought that for my mom when she comes here. And after that we still had to go to Nicole and Izzy's volleyball game.

During our ride around the community, we caught some interesting scenic views of the community and a hot metallic pink car.

Angelina's birthday slideshow

Angelina's 5th Birthday

Yesterday, we attended Angelina's 5th Birthday party at her parents, Val and Anton's house. They had a professional magician there and the kids couldn't stop giggling. Thanks for an awesome day and Happy Birthday Angelina!

Happy Birthday Angelina

Halloween scrapblog

Halloween 2008

My favorite season in Michigan is Fall. I love the sound of crunching leaves and the crisp weather. After living in Arizona for two years, trick or treating is a heckuva alot different here. So to my dear Michigan family and friends, please do not get hurt when I say.... trick or treating in AZ is AWESOME! The kids do not need to wear coats so you can actually see their costumes. All the neighbors sit at the end of there driveway passing out candy and it's one big block party. Some folks have open house parties and some had their firepits out front.

Cha Cha slide performed by Ms. Ghaster's 5th Grade Class

Harvest Daze Scrapblog

Harvest Daze

Well the month of October has just been a flurry of activities between school and community events. So we are just a little behind with our postings. Last week, Vistancia Community hosted a Harvest Daze event. They had pumpkin carving contests, costume contests, face painting, sno cones, popcorn, cotton candy, bouncers, and gord bowling. Even dogs were allowed to dress up and join in the fun. With all the food being around, we elected to keep Max at home. Our friend, Brenda, won the 13 & over costume contest (Yeah Brenda!). She looked like a lawn ornament. Many thanks to all the resident and staff volunteers for putting on an awesome time!